Wednesday, June 24, 2009

The horror that is Tehran

Other bloggers, mostly American ones have put together links, so I merely have to quote them but be warned: some of the pictures and videos are truly horrific. First off, we have ThreatsWatch, quoting a necessarily unnamed blogger who is bravely sending messages from the city.

Gateway Pundit has a round-up with more pictures. The police shoots, beats and hacks away at all protesters, regardless of age or sex. Well, I suppose, why should they consider little matters of that kind when they do not think that their own people are human beings.

In a previous posting he contrasts British, French and German condemnation of the Iranian government's violence with President Obama's desire to continue the "hot-dog diplomacy", constructed by the State Department. It has come to something when the President of the United States finds it impossible to voice a clear support for those who want freedom and democracy. Mind you, that will not help him: the Mullahs will continue to excoriate him and his country.

At least, according to the White House Press Secretary, Robert Gibbs, Iranian diplomats will no longer be welcome at the President's July 4 celebration. Mind you, it is not clear whether the invitations were rescinded because of what is going on in Tehran or because the Iranians have not RSVPd in time.

Will the BBC return to its assumption that Ahmadinejad won the election? Will the rest of our media follow suit? Will people go on blathering about the wonderful Mahmoud who stands up to the West and the Zionists and has only the welfare of his people at heart? And will idiots compare him winning an election with Gordon Brown not being elected? No doubt all these things will happen.

The truth is that such events do not go without consequences. Ahmadinejad's standing as the fighter against American oppression may remain untarnished among the anti-Americans, both left and right in the West, but it will take a severe hammering in the Middle East. And Iran will never be the same.

From AP - "In another sign of the widening post-election crackdown, 70 university professors were arrested late Wednesday, after a meeting with Mousavi, who has alleged massive fraud in the June 12 vote. The detention of the professors signaled that the authorities are increasingly targeting Iran's elite."

I hold no brief for Moussavi and have, indeed, mentioned in an earlier posting that there is not a great deal of difference between the two or there was not them. Things can change, of course, and the situation seems to have carried him along, possibly well beyond what he wanted. This posting is about the people who went out there and were brutally attacked by the security forces.

As for targeting Iran's elite, is that not what every tyrant does? The film "Katyn" is partly about that.

My suggestion is Mousavi is deliberately encouraging protesters to get out on the streets and protest so that they can be brutally attacked. He wants them to be identified and then attacked, arrested, repressed and then monitored more closely by the state's security apparatus.

Why have the Iranian government not yet muzzled, arrested or assassinated this so-called trouble-maker? He does not truly reflect a danger to the revolution and, whether unintentionally, or by design, he is of great use to them.